Counter-Strike 2 update crashes skin market by $1.8 billion
The total value of CS2 skins fell from $6 billion to $4.27 billion – a drop of $1.784 billion, or 28%.
Valve released one of the biggest updates in Counter-Strike 2’s history, adding a crafting feature for knives and gloves – and within 24 hours, it sent the in-game economy into freefall.
Players can now trade five rare (“Covert”) items for a knife or gloves from the same collection – previously obtainable only through loot boxes. The change made high-end items far easier to create, doubling the market’s supply of premium skins almost instantly. Knives that once sold for $1,300 now trade for as little as $200.
Knife prices in CS2 dropped by 60%. Source: x.com
On the Steam Marketplace and third-party trading platforms, activity spiked to crypto-like levels: soaring trade volumes, liquidity draining from top-tier items, and a surge in prices for “Covert” skins needed for crafting. The P250 | See Ya Later jumped from $3 to $36, while the StatTrak P90 | Asiimov shot past $100.
Professional esports player Spinx from team Mouz announced he had sold all his in-game skins.
The CS2 market now resembles crypto – speculation, sudden pumps and dumps, and rapid price corrections. Once considered one of the most stable digital economies, it now faces volatility controlled entirely by Valve, which can mint, restrict, or devalue assets at will across the Steam ecosystem.
The Steam Community Market also suffered technical issues: users reported being unable to open the marketplace or access inventories. Attempting to reload the page returned the error message, “You’ve made too many requests recently.”
Error when attempting to open the Steam Market page. Source: steamcommunity.com
The surge in trading activity appears to have overloaded Steam’s servers as players rushed to sell or rebuy devalued skins. Valve may have temporarily limited market access to stabilize performance after transaction volume hit an all-time high for CS2.
